According to Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine: MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter are passing fads that won't last out the decade. His feeling is that these are three iterations of the same thing - social networking - and that they've all been overhyped. He recommends pulling up stakes and moving on to greener pastures, although he doesn't happen to mention what those might be.
The rationalizations are as follows: MySpace is ugly and filled with pedophiles, all success stories about Second Life are lies, and the intelligencia that use Twitter are doing so because they think it's ridiculous.
Let's take a look at why there's an off chance that Ulanoff might be wrong about his assumptions.
While nobody can deny that MySpace has largely been eclipsed this year by Facebook, it seems laughable that they won't fight back before the end. Besides, there's no precedent for a community-based product as big as MySpace completely disappearing. Even Geocities is still around. Granted, it is an ugly and disorganized product, but it's far from abandoned and anything but cash-poor.
As far as Second Life's success being fictional... well, let's be kind about it and just chalk that up to Ulanoff not being a resident. I can personally account for many, many residents that make a living from Second Life. If Ulanoff would like me to introduce him to them, I'd be only too happy to. Still, it does seem a little extreme to infer that the major corporate presences in Second Life aren't effective. The virtual world is full of people who would personally claim success.
The only one I can't offer insight into is Twitter, but neither can Ulanoff. It has only been around for a few short months and there has never been anything like it. Nobody can really say anything about its longevity with any certainty at this point. His statement about the users seems off target as well. To imply that there are hundreds of intellectuals with spare time and an ironic sense of humor who never admit that it's all a joke seems like a real stretch.
Lance Ulanoff is Editor, Reviews for PC Magazine where he oversees all product and review coverage for PC Magazine and PCMag.com. At least for now.
